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衖 is an older variant character for an alley or narrow lane passing between buildings. A phono-semantic compound, its radical 行 (walking, roads) splits to enclose the phonetic 弄, which provides the sound while also evoking the confined narrowness of such spaces, the graphic structure of a pathway surrounding the inner element visually reinforces the meaning. Over time, 衖 was largely replaced by the simpler 巷 or 弄, with different regional preferences, and now survives mainly in classical texts and specialized historical contexts.
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